Abstract

The dominant themes of flexibilisation and restructuring at all levels of corporate and global change have had a dramatic impact on the concept of what makes people 'employable' at a time of ongoing expansion of neoliberal capitalism. This contemporary scenario reveals striking resemblances across hemispheres in its contradictory convictions toward inclusion and emancipation which do not match the experience that flexibility has had on all affected, in particular, workers. A globalising breed of what appears to be a kind of Third Way politics and neoliberal economic decision-making transcends borders and cultures, and is a phenomenon in need of extensive research and thought. But where has this master discourse of employability and flexibility come from? Is it an immutable, incontestable phenomenon resulting from a market dynamic that cannot be questioned or challenged? Who makes the rules in our shrinking world? In the context of the post-Fordist world of flexible production, most importantly, what has the impact been on workers' subjectivities and in turn, their day to day lives.